Sample Replaces Bookout As Co-Chair Of Legislative Council

Sample Replaces Bookout As Co-Chair Of Legislative Council

LITTLE ROCK — The Senate membership of the state Legislative Council on Tuesday named Sen. Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs, as Senate chairman of the committee to replace former Sen. Paul Bookout, D-Jonesboro, who resigned from the Legislature last month.

Sample had been serving as the committee’s Senate vice chairman. The senators named Sen. David Johnson, D-Little Rock, to replace Sample in that position.

Also during the meeting, held via conference call, Senate President Pro Tem Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, said Bookout would be replaced as vice chairman of the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee and the Senate Efficiency Committee by the committee members of highest seniority. Those members are Sen. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, and Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, R-Rogers, respectively.

Bookout, who had served in the Legislature for 13 years, resigned after the state Ethics Commission fined him $8,000 and reprimanded him for converting thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to personal use. A special prosecutor was appointed to investigate Bookout’s campaign finances after Craighead County Prosecutor Scott Ellington recused, citing personal and professional conflicts.

Gov. Mike Beebe has set a Jan. 14 special election to fill Bookout’s Senate seat. The primary election will be Oct. 8, and the primary runoff election, if necessary, will be Nov. 12.

Seeking the Democratic nomination for the office are Raduis Baker of Jonesboro, superintendent of the Valley View School District; former state Rep. Ray Kidd, a Democrat from Jonesboro; Steve Rockwell of Jonesboro, who manages his family’s publishing companies; and former state Sen. Gene Roebuck of Jonesboro.